Yoga as Embodied Resistance:
Online Book Launch with author Anjali Rao
Hosted by Jivana Heyman at Accessible Yoga with special guest Dr. Alka Arora
Friday, October 17, 2025
1pm-2pm PT  | 4pm-5pm ET
(convert to your local time-zone)
Live on zoom with replay
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In her groundbreaking new book, Anjali Rao explores how yoga can be a vital path to resistance, agency, and collective liberation. Yoga as Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens on Caste, Gender, & Sacred Resilience in Yoga History illuminates the essential—but often unseen—relationships between caste and gender in yoga.
Bridging scholarship, history, and cultural analysis, Anjali inquires into how caste oppression, patriarchy, colonization, and ethno-nationalism impact contemporary practice and offers readers radical ways to re-envision a yoga grounded in liberation, discernment, and even dissent.
What you can look forward to at the FREE virtual launch party:
- Host Jivana Heyman will introduce author Anjali Rao and Dr. Alka Arora, who supported Anjali with developing the manuscript
- Dr. Alka and Anjali will discuss the writing process, their favorite part of the book, what they both learned, and more
- Anjali will offer a short reading
- Q&A with community members
Plus, the event will include two giveaways:
One lucky live attendee will receive a FREE copy of the book, Yoga as Embodied Resistance, and another live attendee will win a spot in Anjali’s four-week reading circle!
Register below to attend this FREE live online event!
Registration includes access to the recording, which will be shared within 48 hours of the live event.
đź“–Â Yoga as Embodied Resistance is coming on October 14! Pre-order your copy here.
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COMING OCTOBER 14!
Yoga as Embodied Resistance
A Feminist Lens on Caste, Gender, & Sacred Resilience in Yoga History
by Anjali Rao
Foreward by Thenmozhi Soundararajan
PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY!About the Author: Anjali Rao
Anjali Rao brings an intersectional and decolonial feminist lens to the study of philosophy and yoga history integrating storytelling, art and poetry. Emphasizing an embodied approach, her work interrogates the link between religions, politics and yoga. She is on the faculty of multiple yoga teacher training programs. She is the host of The Love of Yoga podcast bridging scholarship, activism and yoga. She has served as the President of the Board of Directors of Accessible Yoga Association, a non profit dedicated to ensuring accessibility and equity in yoga spaces to people of all backgrounds.
She is currently pursuing a PhD in Philosophy and Religion in California Institute of Integral Studies. Her book, Yoga As Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens in Caste, Gender And Sacred Resilience (North Atlantic Books, October 14, 2025) is available for preorder.
Connect with Anjali on Instagram @yoganjali and at yoganjali.me
About Dr. Alka Arora
Dr. Alka Arora is a professor of Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), where she teaches and writes at the intersections of feminist spirituality, liberatory pedagogy, and decolonial research methodologies. As a first-generation Indian American scholar raised in the Hindu tradition, she brings a lived understanding of how cultural identity and spiritual practice shape approaches to knowledge, healing, and social justice.
Her current work explores how feminist and decolonial epistemologies can reimagine research, spirituality, and social change in ways that honor both human and more-than-human communities. In addition to her academic contributions, Dr. Arora offers consulting and workshops on transformative education, animal ethics, and intergroup dialogue.
You can learn more about her work at alkaarora.com.
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